Daphne

by Justine Picardie

  Closing her eyes against the sunlight, Daphne pictured a pen moving across a page; Branwell's hand, writing his Angrian chronicles, feverish and furious, shut away in an airless room on a sultry afternoon, when the thunder and the rain was pent up behind the clouds, and he was waiting, waiting to escape out into the world. Or was there no escape from the imaginary world that he conceived for himself and his sisters, the fantastical landscape they called 'the infernal world'? Was there no better place to be than there, amidst the Angrian wars and conquests, or the romances and tragedies of Gondal?

  'Gondal,' she whispered, aloud, speaking the word that she'd already seized upon for herself, for Gondal was what she called her own, most private make-believes and secrets and fictions; Gondal was an island that she had already explored, if not yet conquered . . .

  Daphne imagined reaching out and taking Branwell's pen from him and writing him into life on the page; the redheaded boy who burnt out in that infernal world, reincarnated in her brilliant book, her best yet; to match the best of Charlotte and Emily's work, to match Branwell, too, for in proving him to be a lost genius, she would also prove herself.

  And then she heard it again, the mocking laughter, just behind her, or was it inside her? Was it a magpie's laugh or a seagull's cry or a call of the curlew, wheeling and soaring in the sky? Where was it coming from?

  Daphne remembered a game she played as a child with her sisters and their friends in the garden at Cannon Hall; the other girls called it 'Grandmother's Footsteps' but Daphne christened it 'Old Witch'. She had to stand at the end of the garden, with her back turned to the rest, and one by one they crept closer to her. Every few minutes she spun around, suddenly, to try to see them moving, and if she caught one of them out, that girl would have to go back and begin again. But there was always one who moved silently and pounced while your back was still turned. Now, the rear of Daphne's neck prickled as she waited for a hand to tap her on the shoulder or to feel another's breath in her ear, but she would not turn round, she must not look behind her, she could never go back again.

  Menabilly,

  Par,

  Cornwall

  9th July 1957

  Dear Mr Symington,

  Forgive me for writing to you today without a proper introduction. We have never met, but I am a great admirer of yours, having spent many hours absorbed in studying your magnificent Shakespeare Head edition of the collected works of the Brontës that you edited alongside your late colleague, Mr Wise. I am a keen member of the Brontë Society, and have been so for many years, though I never had the opportunity of meeting Mr Wise, who I understand was a former president of the Society back in the 1920s. I joined the Brontë Society as a girl, some years previously to Mr Wise's tenure when Sir William Robertson Nicoll was still president, following the encouragement of my governess, who shared with me a passion for the Brontës. Indeed, my first novel, 'The Loving Spirit', took its title from a line from my favourite of Emily Brontë's poems, 'Self-Interrogation'.

  However, it is not as a novelist that I write to you today, but as an amateur researcher, hoping to seek your advice, for I am aware, of course, of your status as a leading Brontë scholar, particularly regarding the enigmatic Branwell.

  I am fascinated by the facsimiles of the Angrian manuscripts that you reproduced in the Shakespeare Head edition, and have laboured to decipher the minute handwriting in which they were written by Branwell and Charlotte. For an amateur like myself, it is of course difficult to distinguish between the handwriting of the four Brontë children, which seems remarkably alike to an inexpert eye. But I am much struck by the vast amount of Branwell's work that has never been published and has been dismissed as worthless, without even being transcribed. Indeed, the more I read and think about Branwell, the more certain I am that a myth has grown up around him that has obscured his true worth, by which I mean, the stories of his debauchery have been used to discredit him. It seems to me that because his sisters are so loved and admired, it has somehow become necessary to despise their poor, belittled brother.

  I have been in touch with Mrs Weir, the former secretary of the Brontë Society, who told me that you possessed many of Branwell's manuscripts - that you were, in fact, the leading collector of his work - but it is possible that I misunderstood her, and that these manuscripts are all in the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, or the Brotherton Collection at Leeds University. I know that you were formerly curator and librarian at both of these venerable institutions, and are therefore possessed of a unique expertise, hence my approach to you. I would be very grateful if you could tell me how to locate the whereabouts of Branwell's manuscripts, and also your opinion of his talents as a writer.

  In short, I am fascinated by Branwell, and cannot understand why modern academic research has ignored or misrepresented him. I am quite certain that Emily's Heathcliff was developed from Branwell's fictional alter ego, Northangerland, as was Charlotte's Mr Rochester, and that the Brontë sisters exchanged ideas and manuscripts with their brother far more frequently than is generally supposed. Hence my eagerness to know whether you think this a theory worth pursuing,

  Yours sincerely,

  CHAPTER TWO

  Newlay Grove,

  Horsforth,

  Leeds

  Telephone: 2615 Horsforth

  1lth July 1957

  Dear Miss du Maurier,

  It was an unexpected pleasure to receive your letter, and to learn of your interest in Branwell Brontë. As you so rightly say, he has been very unfairly treated by Brontë scholars and commentators, from Mrs Gaskell onwards; indeed, my task in restoring his reputation has been a lonely one, which has set me apart from others in the field of scholarship, though my singular knowledge of Branwell's manuscripts has been rewarding, of course.

  I am taking the liberty of enclosing two exceedingly rare books from my library, both of them from my privately printed limited editions of Branwell's writings. The first is a nicely bound copy of 'And The Weary Are At Rest: a story of Alexander Percy, otherwise known as the buccaneering Northangerland, a swashbuckling hero who you may already be familiar with from the Brontë children's chronicles of Angriu, though this particular adventure was written when Branwell was a young man. Only fifty copies of this edition were printed in 1924, in a literary collaboration I undertook with my former colleague at the Brontë Society, Mr Clement Shorter. The second item, The Leyland Manuscripts', was produced by myself in equally small quantities the following year, and is a collection of my complete transcription of Branwell's letters to a close friend, a sculptor named Joseph Leyland. The original documents were held in the library that I assembled for Sir Edward (later Lord) Brotherton, at that time housed in Roundhay Hall, his mansion in Leeds where I had the pleasure to work. As you doubtless know, Sir Edward served as president of the Brontë Society from 1927 until his death in 1930.

  I believe you will find both of these volumes to be of interest, and should you wish to keep them, perhaps you could be so kind as to forward me a cheque for £4?

  I take it that you have a complete set of the Shakespeare Head edition? I am most grateful for your kind remarks about my work as editor of these Brontë volumes. I laboured over this great task for many years, and latterly without much help from Mr Wise, it must be said, when he was in the fog and mist surrounding the alleged exposure of his supposed forgeries in other fields. This was over two decades ago, of course, and at the time it would have been inappropriate for me to offer any comment on such murky matters. Nor would I wish to apportion blame or judgement now. However, between ourselves - and I know I can count on your complete discretion on keeping this secret - I very much doubt the genuineness of the various signatures of Charlotte and Emily Brontë which appear on many of the earlier manuscripts. How can we therefore be sure that it was Emily, and not Branwell, who wrote such marvellous poems?

  Mr Symington paused, crossed out the final sentence of his letter, and then tutted to himself as his fountain pen dripped ink on to
the already blotted paper. He bent his head closer to the page to examine his words, squinting through his spectacles in the shadows, and sighed. It was noon, but the summer's day did not intrude into Mr Symington's study; the blinds were drawn against the sunshine, as he always instructed, to protect the contents of his bookshelves from the damaging light. Mr Symington himself looked as pale as the papery leaves of the manuscripts that he had just retrieved from within hidden boxes and files; he looked as if he did not often venture outside.

  He was almost certain that he had locked the door of his study behind him, as was his custom, and put the key in his pocket, along with all the others, but then, suddenly, he felt anxious that he was mistaken, and stood up again, to check that the door was securely fastened, though he had already done so several times this morning. 'You cannot be too careful these days,' he muttered to himself, as he always did when locking his study, as if the words provided an extra protection, along with his regular checks on the door. The house was silent around him, aside from the buzzing of a dying fly at the closed window. His wife Beatrice was running errands (what did she do with herself on these outings, he wondered; where did she go?) and their days of employing three full-time servants were long gone. Beatrice must be content with a weekly char, and though she had been grumbling, Symington feared that even that expense was far too much for him.

  He threaded his way back through the piles of books that formed ramparts around his desk - a big, mahogany bureau that dominated the study - and reread the letter that had arrived this morning, to which he was attempting to reply. It was a most unexpected letter to receive, amidst the usual bills and circulars, from a lady novelist, Daphne du Maurier. Symington had never read any of her books, though he vaguely remembered seeing a play of hers in Leeds after the war; Beatrice had persuaded him that they should go, because she was a fan of du Maurier's. And what was the name of the leading lady? Symington pushed his thumbs into his temples hard, as if he might squeeze the answer out of his head, and then he smiled in triumph; Gertrude Lawrence, that was it and the play was called September Tide. He couldn't recall the details of the plot, nor the titles of du Maurier's other work, aside from the one that was turned into a film, the famous one, Rebecca; though Beatrice had a stack of the books somewhere in the house - romantic novelettes, he believed them to be, inconsequential and far more appropriate for his wife than himself. But even so, he was flattered to receive the letter; for the author was famous, and remarkably well connected, Symington realised, after looking up several references to her and her family in his well-thumbed copy of Who's Who. He felt some pleasure in the discovery that Daphne was the daughter of Sir Gerald du Maurier, who played Captain Hook and Mr Darling in J. M. Barrie's first production of Peter Pan, and granddaughter of George du Maurier, the author of Trilby, a novel that Symington enjoyed, many years ago, when he was still a young man. For some reason, these facts coalesced in his mind to evoke a curiously compelling picture of her as a winged creature, a beautiful butterfly, perhaps, like those he had collected as a boy, netting and etherising them, before pinning them in a series of wooden cases that he still possessed, stacked in dusty piles in the attic.

  Symington also imagined that Daphne du Maurier must be very rich. Somewhere in his extensive, boxed collection of magazines he vaguely remembered an article about her, that he'd put away for Beatrice, describing her reclusive life in a remote mansion in Cornwall by the sea - the setting for Rebecca, which was Beatrice's favourite - and her marriage to a renowned military man, knighted after the war, and subsequently appointed to some high-up job at Buckingham Palace. Symington filed these things away in his head - he tried to be orderly, after his years as a librarian - but instead of putting Daphne du Maurier in her place, they made him feel uncertain. He would have preferred to be dismissive of this woman - why did she assume he had any time to spare her, when he had his own research to continue, and his own literary ambitions to fulfil? Yet he could not suppress his eagerness to know more about her unexpected interest in Branwell Brontë, and perhaps to sell her a few of his manuscripts. Though probably not. . . he reached out to touch the fragile pages he had withdrawn from his files this morning. Why should he trust her with these most precious of possessions? What if she were to mistreat them, or disregard them? She was likely to be as misguided and neglectful as everyone else who coveted his manuscripts, and all the others who must be kept at bay.

  Symington glanced over his file of household accounts that sat to the left of his desk blotter; neatly notated by him, as always, in small columns, everything added up, except it didn't add up, the house was eating up money, and so did Beatrice, what did she spend all the money on? He closed his eyes tightly and sighed, and when he opened them, the room swam around him for a moment, before settling down in the dusty half-light. There was nothing for it; he would have to part with some of his papers to this Daphne du Maurier, but not many, not quite yet.

  Symington picked up his pen again, and let it hover over the figure of four pounds that he proposed as payment for the two books. He had already taken several minutes to fix on this price; he did not wish to appear greedy or grasping - he could not bear a repetition of earlier transactions, which became unpleasant in ways he did not like to recall - but neither was he prepared to donate the books to her. He had other copies, of course; of the fifty original copies of each edition, he had placed only fifteen for sale with a firm of antiquarian book dealers, soon after their publication, keeping the rest for himself. But even so, it pained him to see any of Branwell's writings scattered from his house, instead of remaining safely at home, in his meticulous care.

  Another drop of ink fell on to the page; Symington blotted it, and paused for a while. He did not want to stop writing: he had matters he would like to share with Daphne, who seemed surprisingly knowledgeable, as well as gratifyingly deferential in her tone to him; and it had been a longtime since he could bask in such respect. But he knew he must choose his words carefully, he must not give too much away, for there was always a price to be paid. He wondered how much she already knew about his co-editor on the Shakespeare Head edition; did she know about the scandals concerning Wise? Mrs Weir was discreet, of course, and it had all been hushed up and brushed under the carpet at the time, but even so, there were whispers of gossip over the years. And if she had heard the rumours of Wise's activities as a forger of first editions and signatures, and a thief of manuscripts, then Symington felt it would be necessary to place some distance between himself and his former colleague, even though Wise had died twenty years ago; for Symington did not want to be tainted by association; not again.

  He wiped his pen nib clean, and wrote, 'I doubt if anyone, at this time, could unravel the whole mystery of the Brontë manuscripts. I spent many years trying . . .' Symington hesitated, considering whether to add, 'and failing', but decided against it. 'As I am sure you aware, this is a most sensitive matter,' he continued, 'but of course, when someone signed Branwell's manuscripts with a forgery of Charlotte's signature, and in other instances, with Emily's, it was in the knowledge that the Brontë sisters' signed manuscripts would fetch far more money than their brother's, who has been sadly neglected by the literary establishment for over a century now. Fortunately, I have managed to preserve several of Branwell's original manuscripts in my own private collection, where they have remained safe from tampering. And I can assure you, they reveal his work to be of the highest standard.'

  Symington stopped, and crossed out these last sentences. It sounded as if he was writing a reference for Branwell, for his miserable job as a railway clerk. No, this would not do, it would not do at all. He crumpled up the second page of the letter, and decided that he should end instead with his previous comment that no one would be able to solve the mystery of the Brontë manuscripts. That might make a more tantalising opening for Daphne; a veiled challenge to entice her to continue the correspondence. He signed his name with a flourish, underlined the signature, and blotted the page, again. Then Sym
ington put down his pen, and started tapping his teeth with his fingernails, as if in a private code. This was a new beginning, he thought to himself. This was a very good beginning indeed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hampstead, January

  I am trying. I am very trying. I must try harder. I am trying, though not yet succeeding, to write a proposal for what is supposed to be my PhD thesis on the Brontës' imaginary worlds of childhood, with particular reference to Branwell's influence on Emily and Charlotte. Or perhaps not, perhaps this idea is entirely misconceived, and I should start all over again with a different approach. 'Maybe you're trying too hard?' remarks my husband as he puts his head through my study door just now, and finds me hunched over my computer, looking miserable.

  It's easy for him to say that I'm trying too hard. These things come more easily to him. He is an effortlessly successful English lecturer; though he would not approve of that description. He would say, ' "Effortlessly" is a cliché. Nothing is effortless.' And I suppose it must be an effort, being married to me.

  Oh stop it, do stop this whining and self-pitying. I hate that in myself. That's why my mind keeps straying to Daphne du Maurier instead of Branwell Bronti?, that's what I like about her: her lack of self-pity, her remorseless, pitiless view of the world. You can see it in Emily Brontë, too. Nearly everyone is horrible to everyone else in Wuthering Heights. That's just the way it is, like the weather.

  I wish I could find a way of incorporating Daphne into my thesis, because it was she who got me interested in Branwell in the first place. After I'd devoured all her novels as a teenager, I then read her biography of him, one of her lesser-known books, with a wonderfully gothic title: The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë. But I've already heard my tutor's views on this idea. 'Daphne du Maurier?' he said to me at our most recent meeting, wrinkling his nose as if the mere mention of her name brought a bad smell into the room. 'Surely she is far too minor a figure in twentieth-century publishing to deserve very much academic attention? Popular, of course, but certainly not distinguished by any great literary merit. And given that she is such an unoriginal writer, I doubt whether you could argue the case for her to be included within an original piece of research. Rebecca is simply a shallow, melodramatic rehash of Jane Eyre, and therefore less deserving of celebration than of accusations of plagiarism . . .'